2008 Kenny Hill "1937 Hauser" SP/IN

This 2008 Kenny Hill "1937 Hauser" is a spruce and Indian rosewood classical guitar modeled on Andrés Segovia's 1937 Hermann Hauser I, heard in Alberto Haro's "Prenda Mía" by Michael Váscones on this page.

Kenny Hill's Tribute to the Segovia Hauser

Segovia's 1937 Hauser I, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was documented in blueprints by R.E. Brune, and Kenny built this model from them. Everything is meticulously reproduced – dimensions, thicknesses and internal bracing, as well as the famous Hauser "V-joint" behind the head and the inlay work of the rosette and head veneer.

Materials and Playability

The materials are beautiful, including a gorgeous spruce top with some subtle bear-claw markings and cross-grain "aguas" from a high-quality quartersawn cut, and a lush set of Indian rosewood for the back and sides. Playability is excellent, with a comfortable neck shape and a truss rod for easy action adjustment.

Sound and Condition

Crystal-clear, with the piano-like balance famous in original Hauser guitars – a wonderful tribute to the guitar Segovia called "the greatest guitar of our epoch". Although second-hand, it is in excellent condition, with minimal playing wear in the finish.

Kenny Hill: Guitarist and Guitar Maker

Kenny Hill was born in San Jose, California, and is a performing guitarist and composer as well as a guitar maker. Largely self-taught, he began building guitars professionally in the 1970s in Santa Barbara. In the 1980s he set guitar making aside to raise his four children – though he never stopped performing – and in 1989 he returned to the workbench with copies of historic instruments by Torres, Fleta, Hauser, Rodríguez and Panormo: the beginning of his "Master Series".

From Soledad and Paracho to the Santa Cruz Mountains

In 1993 a grant allowed Kenny to set up a guitar-building shop at Soledad State Prison in California. Two years later he traveled to Paracho, Mexico, as a writer for Acoustic Guitar magazine, to cover a master class led by José Luis Romanillos, and in 1996 he established a workshop there, spending five years building a market for Paracho's guitars. Out of this work grew workshops in California, Mexico and China: his "New World" guitars are made in Guangzhou, China, in a factory of which he is a founding shareholder, and he is designer emeritus and a long-time consultant for Cordoba Guitars.

Kenny's own Signature and Performance models – with double tops, lattice bracing and sound ports – are built by hand in his workshop in Ben Lomond, in the mountains near Santa Cruz, California, by a team of about six craftsmen that includes his son and son-in-law. In 2015 the Guitar Foundation of America honored him with its Industry Leadership Award.

Kenny Hill Guitars at GSI

Many Kenny Hill guitars have passed through our doors, from his Master Series replicas of the great historical makers to his modern Signature and Performance models.